For anyone working in the integration industry, it’s well known that the industry is pretty male-dominated. Even 2016 CI State of the Industry report shows that just 4.4 percent of respondents are female.
Some may chalk it up to women tending not to have a whole lot of interest, or expertise, in tech fields in general, but a recent study from Accenture challenges this old-school assumption.
The study, which was reported in a fortune.com article, shows that women bring more tech expertise to a corporate boardroom than men do.
Here’s what the study found:
According to new Accenture research, female members of corporate boards are nearly twice as likely as their male counterparts to have professional technology experience, which the study defined as either holding a key tech position at a previous employer—such as CTO or CIO—or having senior-level responsibility at a technology firm.
Accenture looked at women’s representation on the boards of more than 500 Forbes Global 2000 companies in 39 countries across Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Australia. Overall, 16% of the women on these companies’ boards have digital experience, vs. 9% of men.
The following graphic shows the amount of professional tech experience of board members, by industry:
NSCA’s Ignite Program Is Anecdote for Industry Unable to Promote Itself
Recruiting in general has been an ongoing challenge in the industry, and finding ways to get any fresh-out-of-college potential job candidate, male or female, interested in pursuing a career in integration has been a daunting task for many companies. Trying to get already-established candidates in other tech fields to cross over to integration may be even more difficult.
Our research has shown that few people outside of it even know the integration industry exists.
Integration companies need to promote themselves and reach candidates who have the qualifications for jobs in the integration industry. As CI editor Tom Leblanc argues, not promoting your company could be costing you smart candidates, and it seems that this Accenture research is proving this hypothesis true.
Integration businesses need to look at their own boardrooms and see how many women fill those seats. If the number is low, you could be missing out on critical expertise, and overall financial gain.
Finding ways to reach potential job candidates with the tech background needed to work in the integration industry should be businesses’ top priority when recruiting new job candidates, and it just so happens that many of these candidates may be women.
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